Eden Hill Journal

Comments, dreams, stories, and rantings from a middle-aged native of Maine living on a shoestring and a prayer in the woods of Maine. My portion of the family farm is to be known as Eden Hill Farm just because I want to call it that and because that's the closest thing to the truth that I could come up with. If you enjoy what I write, email me or make a comment. If you enjoy Eden Hill, come visit.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Global Warming

I have an embarrassing situation out in my garden. It's October 20 and we haven't even had our first frost yet. Normally we would have had one a month ago and some really killing freezing nights since then but not this year. We didn't plant our usual garden spot this summer, but we planted a few other new garden spots. We had success with tomatoes in the past two years by planting them in large pots with a rich mixture of compost and fine soil that I salvaged from ant hills up on the farm. We did that again this year and one of the pots with red cherry tomatoes is still thriving. It's a monster, in fact it's the biggest bunch of tomato plants I've ever grown.But what should I do? There are quite a few young green tomatoes on the plant. It's still sprouting new growth as though it thinks there is a whole new growing season ahead. It even has new growth and blossoms. Should I bring it inside for the winter? If so, where should it go? We really don't have any free sunny spots for a plant like this.But it's nearing late October! What's going on? Even the fall foliage is hanging on this year way past its peak.I shouldn't complain. Summer was late this year. We kept having one cold wave after another. It took forever for the lakes to warm up enough for comfortable swimming. So the garden was late coming in. Is this the new trend in Maine weather, prolonged autumn followed by late arrival of snow, but then late spring and summer? Is it global warming? Is this why the housing slump hasn't hit New England yet?So confusing!